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Tag: God

  • No More in the World

    No More in the World

    And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world…

    The prayer of Christ Jesus – Gospel of John 17:11 KJV

    Prayer for disciples

    In answering the question, ‘Who Does JESUS Pray For?’ we have clearly determined that Christ Jesus prays for us as High Priest and intercessor before God our Father.

    “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world; they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.

    John 17:6 NASB

    Jesus, although not praying for Judas, intercedes for the Eleven Apostles in the upper room as well as other disciples – those followers in every era to come until the judgment of the world.

    Eternal Life will be granted ONLY to those the FATHER has given to the SON and not all of the world — not to the worldly, not to the unrepentant, not to the Antichrists of the last days of John or to those opposing Christ Jesus in these last days.

    Jesus Son of Man and Son of God prays: “I do not ask on behalf of the world, but of those whom You have given Me,” but who are these?

    John 17:

    6 “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world…

    9 “I pray for them. I am not praying for the world but for those you have given me…

    And here is Jesus’ all-powerful intercession for us — sinners left without hope doing too few works of righteousness to earn eternal life.

    And now I am no more in the world,

    but these are in the world,

    and I come to thee.

    Holy Father,

    keep through thine own name

    those whom thou hast given me,

    that they may be one, as we are.

    John 17:11 KJV

    One with the Father

    Jesus’ incarnate mortal life is about to end!

    And what does the Lord pray to the Father as He stands before the Apostles with His arms raised to heaven to the Father, the Lord Almighty?

    Jesus prays that they may be one as He and the Father are One.

    שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד׃

    Deuteronomy 6:4 – Masoretic text

    shama`Yisra’el Yehovah ‘elohiym Yehovah ‘echad … “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one! …

    Jesus had witnessed:

    • “All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. – John 6:37
    • “No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. – John 6:44
      • “I will raise him up on the last day” is certain reference to eternal life and assurance to disciples of Jesus.
    • “I and the Father are one.” – John 10:30

    One with the Son

    Here stands the same Son of the Father, God incarnate! praying for those He selected before the world began. Jesus, the Christ and Messiah prays for the sameness of relationship the He enjoys with the Father.

    One and the same would be the expression of relationship – God’s Perfect relationship in love.

    Jesus IS; yet in His Oneness He says He is ‘no longer in the world’ (past tense). Jesus prays for those He loves though they must remain in the world for now (as do we).

    As WE are ONE refers to Christ as the LORD, One with the Father and the Holy Spirit of God!

    10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. [KJV]

    Now Jesus prays:

    Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are.

    John 17:11b NASB

    Jesus bows before our Holy Heavenly Father as the Perfect and Incarnate Son of Sacrifice pleading for God to protect or keep them in the Lord’s fold as He leaves them to the predators of this world opposed to GOD and all righteousness.

    Then again, Jesus prays an astounding prayer of intercession: “… that they may be one even as we are.”

    One with God?

    How can a mere man be one with God?

    John has already used this testimony of Jesus many times including:

    • “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one G1520 flock with one G1520 shepherd.
      • – of the gentiles joined with the Jews following the One Messiah as if they were one – John 10:16

    Now in His great prayer of intercession Jesus prays for this mystical relationship of love between the Father, the Son and those chosen to eternal life.

    John 17: CSB

    21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you.

    May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me.

    22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one.

    23 I am in them and you are in me,

    so that they may be made completely one,

    that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

    Jesus’ loving words for believers here bears repeating.

    • “That the world may know [our Father God sent Jesus Christ].
      • Is this your witness, beloved brother or sister in Christ?
    • “and have loved them
      • Yes. our Creator Who determined your days also loves you as a beloved son or daughter IF you accept His mercy and grace through the Lord Jesus.
    • “as you have loved me.
      • Our Perfect Creator loves us as He has loved the Perfect Son, our Lord and Savior the Messiah and Christ Jesus.

    Do you bow humbly before your Lord and Savior who even as He prayed for you would soon sacrifice His Very Flesh and Blood on a Cross for your sins?

    To be continued...

  • The Authority of Jesus, His Power over all flesh

    The Authority of Jesus, His Power over all flesh

    He said, “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh…

    John 17:1b-2a NASB

    Let us pray:

    LORD, help us to understand the Person of Your Son Jesus Christ through His prayer to the Father.
Amen.

    We have begun our look at Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer made corporately before the Eleven just prior to the Lord’s departure for Gethsemane where He will be betrayed. The Hour Is Come – Glory to the Son AND the Father

    Jesus stands before the Apostles, looks up (probably with His arms extended as later they would be on the Cross) and His open hands of flesh turned heavenward and prays,

    “Father the hour has come … glorify your Son, so that your Son may glorify you—

    Jesus, the faithful only Son of God always prayed to the Father; but listen once more to a most familiar prayer and hear along with this High Priestly Prayer a connection you may have missed.

    For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever.

    Amen.

    Jesus’ closing from ‘The Lord’s Prayer’ – Matthew 6:13b KJV

    Did you catch that Jesus connects ‘the power‘ to ‘the glory’ of the LORD God – a glory we examined at some length previously in our study of John 17:1?

    Our prayer to Heaven’s King

    Now beloved believer, you will not have had much cause to consider so far anything less than glorifying this humble Servant Son of God made flesh; for Jesus epitomizes everything peaceful in mankind. Our Lamb of God is submissive in His love of God and approachable by His fellow man.

    But this temporal nature of Emmanu-El, born humbly in Bethlehem, though His humble nature will continue to the Altar of the Cross, Jesus will not continue as servant until the judgment of the world, but ultimately as its ruler and Lord!

    We pray to GOD because HE IS THE LORD GOD, and the humble must confess that we are NOT.

    • Does your daily life witness your own humility to bow down to GOD in prayer as did Jesus the Son?
    • Will the created acknowledge the authority of Jesus, WHO WITH THE FATHER IS the creator of all things and Judge of all flesh?

    This is why we pray.

    Jesus now prays for us as the Perfect High Priest. The Messiah Jesus therefore intercedes before the Father for those who willingly seek eternal life with Him in glory — disciples in spirit seeking grace for a dying flesh from dust rather than the judgment we deserve of sinners refusing the authority and mercy of the LORD God.

    Christians of these last days speak lightly of grace given as if any claim of Jesus is fruit of a sinful spirit saved. Yet does our witness of Christ glow in the glory of His High Authority?

    Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com

    Authority

    Jesus is not praying about anything new here, for authority in relationships both earthly and between the created and Creator appear throughout Scripture.

    When the godly are in authority, the people rejoice.
    But when the wicked are in power, they groan.

    When the wicked are in authority, sin flourishes,
    but the godly will live to see their downfall.

    Proverbs 29:2 & 29:16 NLT

    The authority between those on earth ought to be immediately evident since Jesus provided much guidance and many examples to the Disciples and crowds of Jews so well schooled in the discipline of Scripture.

    In this prayer, however, Jesus speaks directly to God the Father not only as their Authority but about His and the Apostles authority.

    John 17:

    Jesus spoke these things, looked up to heaven, and said,

    “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you gave him authority over all people, so that he may give eternal life to everyone you have given him.

    What does our Lord and High Priest pray?

    Glorify your Son; that is, Jesus prays in essence, ‘Father glorify Me!’ Yet what reason does Jesus offer?

    Jesus prays that HIS glory will be necessary “so that [He, Jesus] the Son may glorify you [the Father]. The Lord restates His own authority recalling an action of the Father which had already taken place.

    Jesus then offers through this granted authority a higher reason for His intercessory request:

    “… So that he [Jesus] may give eternal life…”

    Note that Jesus does not promise eternal life to all, but to only to those the Father has already given to the Son our Savior. He becomes our perfect Priest and Sacrifice.

    As for those who refuse Christ? Justice will find the dust and ashes of unrepentant souls who will stand before Jesus’ authority at the judgment.

    Authority of The Word

    John opens his Gospel with Jesus’ preeminent authority.

    In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

    John 1:1 KJV

    14 And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

    John 5 excerpt:

    [We shall stick with the King James Version for the moment to remind our long-lost 21st century perception of the authority and appropriate approach of a king.] – RH

    For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.

    For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

    Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

    You with ears to hear, LISTEN to this previous proclamation of Jesus our King! Jesus clearly proclaims:

    • God the Father raises the dead to life (quickeneth).
    • Jesus the Son gives life (quickeneth) to whom He will.
    • The dead will hear the voice of Jesus, Son of God.
    • Those dead souls who Jesus chooses shall live again.

    Did we overlook one point of power of the Lord Jesus’ authority?

    In our too-near familiarity with the humble Lamb of God made man we often lose His authority to come in the wrath of God:

    and He [the Father] gave Him [Jesus] authority to execute judgment, because He [Jesus] is the Son of Man.

    John 5:27 NASB
    • The Father gave Jesus authority to execute judgment!

    WHY? Because He IS the “Son of Man,” as well as the “Son of God.”

    Returning to the Upper Room

    Do you recall what Jesus had said after Judas left the room to go to Jerusalem’s religious leaders to betray his Lord?

    Therefore when he had gone out, Jesus said,

    “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately. – John 13:31 NASB

    Now in His High Priestly Prayer Jesus prays, “you gave him authority over all people.

    “I have revealed your name to the people you gave me from the world. They were yours, you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

    (or from the more formal King James Version🙂

    I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word. – John 17:6 KJV

    Power over all flesh

    Once again returning to the kingly language of the King James Version as introduction once more to Jesus’ High Priestly Prayer:

    As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

    And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.

    Prayer of Jesus Christ from the Gospel of John 17:2-3 KJV

    Jesus prays of His Power over all flesh, over creation, over you and me, even power over all authority of this world.

    Is Jesus your Lord, a High Priest interceding for your sinful flesh before the HOLY LORD GOD ALMIGHTY?

    To be continued...
  • Father, the hour is come

    Father, the hour is come

    Jesus uses ‘Father’ as a relational approach to God, just like the trust which the boy Jesus surely must have had with Joseph, husband of His mother Mary, many times.

    Yet what does this mean to a disciple of Jesus’ teaching to address the Lord God as Father?

    Father, the hour has come

    There’s a certain immediacy to saying, ‘the hour’ is come, or now is or has come. It is the precise time we have been awaiting – a time prepared long before now.

    Our present focus of The Hour Is Come is Jesus’ prayer at the precise time after Judas left the room and prior to the Lord and the Eleven departing for Gethsemane where He is about to be betrayed.

    When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, “Father, the hour has come;

    glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you since you have given him authority over all flesh, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him.

    John 17:1-2 ESV

    Jesus begins His conversation in prayer by addressing the LORD God in a most intimate and relational way.

    “Father,” the Son of Man so boldly addresses Almighty God in heaven. What a connection!

    A Man Who IS more than a man — speaking directly to the LORD GOD, as if He Who IS the very Son of God would humbly address his papa on earth.

    Trinity begins with the Father

    The lesson and relationship learned from Jesus’ prayer is both mysterious and wonderful — glorious in a sense of worship and humbling in the light of an intimate relationship.

    Later we will focus again on Jesus the Son of God, His connection through the Holy Spirit and a new covenant of grace for all who will follow Jesus as Lord. But for now we look up only to the Father, as did Jesus in His prayer..

    πατήρ – patēr

    Choose any of the three definitions you like, but realize that John and the Eleven are listening to the Son of Man, Jesus their Master and Teacher, pray directly to the LORD God in heaven, whose Voice they have heard previously.

    1. generator or male ancestor
    2. metaphor for:
      1. the authors of a family or society of persons animated by the same spirit as himself
      2. one who has infused his own spirit into others, who actuates and governs their minds
      3. one who stands in a father’s place and looks after another in a paternal way
      4. a title of honour
        1. teachers, as those to whom pupils trace back the knowledge and training they have received (We don’t really honor teachers in this way in these last days, but some give this authority to a priest leader of a flock.)
        2. the members of the Sanhedrin (As you know, Jesus had some issue with these ‘fathers of Israel’ as well & they will be the ones to clandestinely convict the Messiah of God our Father sent as our atoning Sacrifice to save a remnant of Abraham.)
    3. God is called the Father (This applies is many ways you may read here, but above all ‘Father of spiritual beings and of all men.’)

    By all Authority implied in Jesus’ opening of HIS High Priestly Prayer, it is highly significant that the Lord Jesus ‘lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father …’

    And from Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament the definition instructs us from the everyday Greek word used by Jesus and those in Jerusalem governed by Rome:

    πατήρ : ‘from a root signifying “a nourisher, protector, upholder” (Lat., pater, Eng., “father,” are akin), is used

    [God’s] “Fatherhood” in spiritual relationship through faith is the subject of NT revelation, and waited for the presence on earth of the Son. The spiritual relationship is not universal.

    Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament

    [& an additional insight: Note: Whereas the everlasting power and divinity of God are manifest in creation, His “Fatherhood” in spiritual relationship through faith is the subject of NT revelation, and waited for the presence on earth of the Son, Mat 11:27; Jhn 17:25.

    The spiritual relationship is not universal, Jhn 8:42, 44 (cp. Jhn 1:12; Gal 3:26).] [I will leave you to your own further revelation of the Father through your research of these scriptures. RH]

    The ‘Father’ of Jesus’ prayer

    With additional insight of bowing down to God the Father in our prayer to heaven, let us recall that Jesus had already taught the Disciples that which we know so well and do take for granted.

    The Lord’s Prayer

    After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

    Matthew 6:9 KJV
    father with turban and beard seated with arms around son

    ‘Our,’ which precedes Father, in the Lord’s Prayer is a personal possessive pronoun, a possessive plural in corporate prayer.

    So perhaps appropriate in a singular personal possessive sense in prayer, you or I might reasonably pray,

    “My Father in heaven. Holy is your Name.”

    (And recall that the Lord Jesus has declared: “I and the Father are One.” [John 10:30]

    What glorious mystery for us to observe Jesus and the Father, who are One, in this, His most personal prayer prior to the Son’s sacrifice on a Cross for our sins.

    The Disciples had been accustomed to Jesus praying to the Father at many times corporately before the multitudes, more privately among them and privately away from them at times.

    Luke 11:

    And it came to pass, that, as he was praying in a certain place, when he ceased, one of his disciples said unto him,

    ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John also taught his disciples.’

    And he said unto them, ‘When ye pray, say,

    Our Father which art in heaven,

    Hallowed be thy name.

    Thy kingdom come.

    Thy will be done,

    as in heaven, so in earth.

    Luke 11:2b KJV

    When your mortal ‘time is come’ will you able to approach your heavenly Father saying, ‘Thy will be done?’

    Roger Harned – talkofJesus.com on Jesus’ prayer in John 17

    So from this final prayer following the last supper of Jesus and the Disciples, John witnesses this high priestly prayer of their Master and Teacher Jesus, a beloved father to the Twelve for these past three years.

    πατήρ – patēr – a title of honour – teachers, as those to whom pupils trace back the knowledge and training they have received

    John 17:

    … “Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You…

    5 Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself…

    11 I am no longer in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world, and I come to You.

    Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me,

    that they may be one even as We are.

    One with the One Father

    Do you think that it is important to the Apostles that Jesus again prays to the Father with words confirming that He and the Father are ONE?

    שְׁמַ֖ע יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה אֶחָֽד׃

    “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD is one!

    Deuteronomy 6:4 Masoretic Text, NASB

    Jesus continues and prays just a short time later:

    21 that they may all be one;

    even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You,

    that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

    Relationship with our Father in heaven

    Paul, Apostle to the gentiles, later writes to the church in Corinth:

    Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? … But the one who joins himself to the Lord is one spirit with Him… Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you

    1 Corinthians 6:15-19 excerpt NASB

    Again, the Apostle Paul and Jesus both point to the glorious mystery of the Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as ONE, as well as a personal relationship between the spirit of a redeemed man like you or me to the ONE GOD, Who IS Spirit and truth.

    John 17:

    Jesus continues His High Priestly Prayer as intercession for these disciples and those to follow:

    24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am…

    25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me…

    What must the Disciple have thought following Jesus’ prayer to the Father?

    What do you think of this prayer to the Holy Father in heaven by the Highest of High Priests praying for your soul?

    “Lord,” they called Jesus — “the existing One” as more than a Son of Man, as the LORD GOD IS ONE!

    אֱלֹהִים

    ‘elohiym – ʼĕlôhîym, el-o-heem’; plural of H433; gods in the ordinary sense; but specifically used (in the plural thus, especially with the article) of the supreme God

    Our LORD is the ONE GOD — Trinity — the Son interceding by prayer and His own priestly Sacrifice for those who believe and would be saved.

    When Jesus had spoken these words, he went out with his disciples across the brook Kidron, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered.

    John 18:1 ESV
    To be continued...